Lucy Stone (1818-1893)

Lucy Stone, 1847

(Oberlin College Archives)

Short biographical note

Lucy Stone, "American reformer, who was a pioneer in the movement
for women's rights. She was born near West Brookfield, Mass., on Aug.
13, 1818. Disagreeing with her father's belief that men should be
dominant over women, Lucy undertook to educate herself and was
graduated from Oberlin College in 1847.

A woman of great personal magnetism, she toured the country,
lecturing against slavery for the
Anti-Slavery
Society and also advocating equality for women. She was an
organizer of the first national women's rights convention held in
Worcester, Mass., in 1850. In 1855 she married Henry Blackwell, a
crusader for women's suffrage, and by mutual agreement with her
husband she retained her maiden name. She then focused on winning
equality for women, generally through legislation, and often in vain.
She helped organize the
American
Woman Suffrage Association in 1869.

From 1872 she and her husband were in charge of the Woman's
Journal , an effective forum for communicating their views. She
continued to be active in the cause of women's rights almost until
the time of her death, in Dorchester, Mass., on Oct. 18, 1893."

Alice Stone Blackwell writes of her mother

An easy college choice:

"At the low wages then paid to women, it took Lucy nine years to
save up money enough to enter college. There was no difficulty as to
the choice of an alma mater. There was only one college that admitted
women." (42)

Abolitionism at Oberlin:

"Professor
Finney was famous for his terrific brimstone sermons. The
'Come-Outers' were the Garrisonian abolitionists, of whom Lucy was
one. The Garrisonians were most of them unorthodox in their religious
views; they severely denounded the proslavery attitude of most the
clergy and churches; they encourages public speaking by women; they
were generally non-resistants; they withheld their allegiance from
the United States Constitution because it sanctioned slavery; and
they advocated 'No union with slaveholders.' Several of the
professors and a number of the students had come over to Oberlin from
Lane Seminary, because its president, Doctor Lyman Beecher, forbade
the discussion of slavery there. Oberlin was strongly antislavery,
but its abolitionism was strictly orthodox and constitutional. Lucy
wrote home a little later: 'There is not a single Liberator
taken in Oberlin, nor a single Liberator man, woman or child
here but me.'" (48-49)

The first debating society:

"The young men had to hold debates as part of their work in
rhetoric, and the young women were required to be present, for an
hour and a half every week, in order to hlep form an audience for the
boys, but were not allowed to take part. Lucy was intending to
lecture and Antoinette [Brown
Blackwell] to preach. Both wished for practice in public
speaking. They asked Professor Thome, the had of that department, to
let them debate. He was a man of liberal views -- a Southerner who
had freed his slaves -- and he consented. Tradition says that the
debate was exceptionally brilliant. More persons than usual came in
to listen, attracted by curiosity. But the Ladies' Board immediately
got busy, St. Paul was invoked, and the college authoritiues forbade
any repitition of the experiment.

A few of the young women, led by Lucy, organized the first
debating society ever formed among college girls. At first they held
their meetings secretly in the woods, with sentinels on the watch to
give warming of intruders. When the weather grew colder, Lucy asked
an old colored woman who owned a small house, the mother of one of
her colored pupils, to let them have the use of her parlor. At first
she was doubtful, fearing that the meetings might be a cover for
flirtation; but when she found that the debating society was made up
of girls only, she decided that it must be an innocent affair, and
gave her consent. Her house was on the outskirts of the town, and the
girls came one or two at a time, so as not to attract attention. Lucy
opened the first formal meeting with the following statement:

'We shall leave this college with the reputation of a thorough
collegiate course, yet not one of use has received any rhetorical or
elocutionary training. Not one of us could state a question or argue
it in successful debate. For this reason I have propsed the formation
of this association.'" (60-61)